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Building a document timestamping contracts app in under 30 minutes
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Tutorial: Building a document timestamping contracts app in under 30 minutes

Document timestamping is the process of proving that a document existed at a certain time, usually, without revealing the contents of that document to the entity doing the timestamping. Examples include financial reports, predictions about the future, invoices and so on.

By inserting a hash into the block chain using a special transaction output type, called an OP_RETURN output, we can build a timestamping app on top of Bitcoin. This video tutorial shows how.

The program saves proof files with a .timestamp extension: these proofs contain what's called a Merkle branch. You can learn more about Merkle trees and branches at the official Bitcoin block chain developer guide.

<iframe width="680" height="422" src="//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Hl7WT7mmS6U?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Overview

The tutorial covers:

  1. How to start from the wallet-template app
  2. How to build a complex, multi-step block chain proof
  3. How to bind block chain state to the GUI

Get the code

You can find the code on github here:

https://github.com/mikehearn/devcoretalk